Human Rights in the Context of Inter-Cultural Dialogue: Cultural Relativism and the Concept of  The Reasonable'

For the past few decades, the emergence of various waves of multiculturalism has raised the fundamental question that considering cultural diversity as the most prominent feature of human societies, can the Declaration of Human Rights still be viewed as containing universal moral values? If cultural differences represent the diversity of human identities, how far and on what basis should the people who want to preserve their particular identities in face of assimilatory effects of globalization, are obligated to abide by the contents of the Declaration? In this paper, employing Charles Taylor’s conception of the dialogical self, John Rawls’s distinction between the rational and the reasonable, and Michael Walzer’s argument on thick and thin moral principles, it is discussed that, although the implications of identity differences may well affect the ways the contents of the principles of human rights are articulated, there are some principles which contain basic values that are universally valued, regardless of the existence of unique cultural identities of human societies.